The goal of the RISK program is to support highly innovative, disease-focused transitional studies. RISK accomplishes this through a 3-step multi-application mechanism.

The applications should be highly innovative, disease-focused translational studies that would be considered too risky for a regular grant funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Support will be provided for up to 2 years (R61 Phase) to perform critical experiments that rigorously test the proposed concept. The outcomes of these critical experiments will be the central determining factor for the activation of the R33 Phase. The R33 Phase will provide up to 1 additional year of support to further validate and explore the innovative concept.